Doctor Faustus

 Dr. Faustus 

 

"Dr Faustus" is a play written by the English playwright Christopher Marlowe in the late 16th century. It tells the story of a brilliant but disillusioned scholar named Faustus who makes a pact with the devil in exchange for unlimited knowledge and power. As a result of this deal, Faustus gains unbelievable abilities such as the ability to summon spirits, travel through time and space, and command the elements. However, as time goes on, Faustus becomes increasingly disillusioned with his powers and the deal he made with the devil. Although being warned by a good angel to repent and turn back to God, Faustus carries on to indulge in his desires and eventually meets a tragic end. 

 

Historical Background 

At the time the play was being performed, Calvinism was on the rise within the Church of England but remained a source of controversy. It is clear that the Protestant English church and Roman Catholicism had an influence on the play's disparaging depiction of the pope. The Church of England witnessed a surge in Calvinism, though it still caused controversy. Scholars perpetually debated the Faustus play's attitude towards the Calvinist doctrine of destiny. 

 

Themes 

• Pride: Faustus is portrayed by his pride, which makes him unwilling to repent or seek forgiveness for his sins. His pride prevents him from recognizing the fault of his ways until it is too late. 

 

• The supernatural: The play analyses the relationship between the human and supernatural worlds, as Faustus summons demons and interacts with the devil himself.  

 

• Good vs. evil: The play explores the conflict between good and evil, as Faustus struggles between his desire for knowledge and power and his conscience, which tells him that he is making a deal with the devil. 

 

• The human condition: The play explores the limitations of human knowledge and the fragility of human existence, as Faustus realizes too late that his deal with the devil has led him to damnation. 

 

I want to shed light on some critical themes such as ambition and the power of temptation. Throughout the play, Faustus is tempted by the devil in various forms, offering him wealth, power, and knowledge. Faustus is initially reluctant to make a deal with the devil, but he ultimately succumbs to temptation and makes the deal. Faustus is obsessed with the idea of gaining more power and knowledge and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, including selling his soul to the devil. He is the slave of his desires, and he lost it. We can see many works which written in this period. In fact, when we compare the people of modern times with the people of that period, we can see that conditions never changed literally. People's desire possession for power will never finish, although these desires are the end of them.  

  

Literary devices 

 

• Soliloquy: Faustus often speaks directly to the audience in soliloquies, revealing his inner thoughts and motivations. 

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• Imagery: The play is rich in imagery, especially when depicting the supernatural realm and the demons that Faustus summons. 

 

• Irony: The play makes use of irony, particularly in its portrayal of Faustus's downfall. Despite his desire for knowledge and power, he ultimately becomes a servant of the devil. 

 

• Allusion: The play makes use of allusions to classical and biblical texts, such as the story of Icarus and the fall of Lucifer. 

 

• Foreshadowing: The play uses foreshadowing to hint at Faustus's eventual downfall, such as when Mephistopheles tells him that he will never be able to repent. 

 

 Symbols  

As with many other works from this period, Dr. Faustus includes various symbols such as Blood, the Good-Evil Angels and The Seven Deadly Sins. The three symbols make me influenced exactly, yet I focus on the last symbol, the seven deadly sins. Lucifer entertains Faustus by calling up the Seven Deadly Sins. These symbols rather clearly symbolize the sins for which they are named, but they also reveal Faustus' foolish neglect of sin. These symbols rather clearly symbolize the sins for which they are named, but they also reveal Faustus' foolish neglect of sin. 

 

Pride 

Covetousness 

Wrath  

Envy 

Gluttony 

Sloth 

Lechery 

 

Finally, Marlowe's use of language is one of the most striking features of the play. He employs vivid imagery, metaphors, and poetic language to create a dramatic and engaging story. The play is written in blank verse, which is a form of unrhymed iambic pentameter, and this adds to the play's poetic and dramatic effect. "Doctor Faustus" is a thought-provoking and powerful play that continues to be studied and performed to this day. Its exploration of themes such as ambition, morality, and the consequences of making deals with the devil makes it a timeless work of literature. 

Christopher Marlowe: Elizabethan Drama

Christopher Marlowe 

 

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was an influential English playwright, poet, and translator who had a great impact on Elizabethan drama. The son of a Canterbury shoemaker, Christopher Marlowe, was born two months before William Shakespeare. Marlowe attended Cambridge University and was renowned for his aptitude in languages such as Latin, Greek and French. In 1580, he was granted a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, which was typically given to those who were studying to become ministers. He was granted the scholarship for a maximum of six years, though he never took holy orders. Instead, he began to write plays. He wrote various plays, including "Tamburlaine the Great," "Doctor Faustus," and "The Jew of Malta." His plays were known for their bold and unconventional themes, such as the pursuit of power, the struggle for identity, and the conflict between desire and morality. In addition to his plays, Marlowe was also known for his poetry, including "Hero and Leander," a tragic love story, and his translations of Ovid's "Amores" and "The Art of Love." Marlowe was a contemporary and rival of William Shakespeare, and his work is considered to have had a significant influence on the development of Elizabethan dram. He is also known for his poetry, which includes the famous poem "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.". In Marlowe's play, there are few if any glimpses of a transcendent design. His hero is the vehicle for the expression of boundless energy and ambition. The English theatre audience had never heard such a resonant, vastly energetic blank verse. The great period of Elizabethan drama was launched by what Ben Jonson called "Marlowe's mighty line."  

Marlowe was twenty-three when he got his first theatrical success. Marlowe had only six years to live. They were not peaceful years. In 1589 he was involved in a brawl with one William Bradley, in which the poet Thomas Watson intervened and killed Bradley. Both poets were imprisoned, but Watson got off on a plea of self-defence, and Marlowe was released. In 1591, Marlowe was living in London with playwright Thomas Kyd. Later, Kyd accused Marlowe of atheism and treason under torture when he gave information to the Privy Council. On May 30, 1593, an individual named Bichard Baines submitted a note to the Council, claiming that Marlowe had made statements showing atheism, sedition, and homosexuality. Four days later, at an inn in the London suburb of Deptford, Marlowe was killed by a dagger thrust, purportedly in an argument over the bill. Despite his short career, Marlowe's work continues to be studied and performed today, and he is regarded as one of the greatest dramatists of the English Renaissance. 

REFERENCES 

Abrams, M.H., Greenblatt, Stephen, David, Alfred and Lewalski, Barbara K. (1987). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. The Major Athuors (6 ed.). London: Norton & Company Ltd. 

 

History of Britain and Ireland: The Definitive Visual Guide 

Restoration Theatre; An introduction

 

Restoration Theatre 

 

The Restoration Period points out to a period in English history between 1660 and 1688. After the collapse of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, with the return of Charles to the English throne, this period began. During this age; arts, literature, and culture flourished and underwent restoration in England. In addition to cultural changes, the Restoration Period witnessed significant political and social changes such as theatre, and many folk rituals were banned by Puritans in 1642. The monarchy was restored, and the power of the aristocracy increased. Generally, the Restoration Period was a significant period in English history in terms of cultural, artistic, and intellectual pursuits, as well as important political and social developments.  

 

The literature of the Restoration period dealt with themes of love, sexual matters, and politics. During the time between Charles's Restoration and the start of sentimental comedy in the 1700s, comedy reigned, but there was plenty of heroic tragedy. One of the most famous writers of this period is John Dryden, who is known for his poetry and plays. He is considered the leading literary figure of the Restoration era. Other known writers include Aphra Behn, Samuel Pepys, John Wilmot and Earl of Rochester. Restoration literature provided the cultural and social alterations that happened during this time in English history. 

 

Restoration Comedy is known as artificial or comedy of manners. Restoration comedies often focused on the social codes of the middle and upper classes; sexual matters and aristocratic characters, including their affairs, marriages of convenience, and other romantic entanglements. 

Reconstruction based on a drawing of Drury Lane by Christopher Wren, the theatre's architect (1674) 

 

A Frame of William Shakespeare's Life: Style of his works and Sonnets #2

 William Shakespeare 

 

In the late 16th century, William Shakespeare began his career as a playwright by writing such as tragedies, comedies, and historical plays. He was inspired by Holinshed's Chronicles, his plays based on Holinshed. These chronicles are vital for a theatre of this time.  

  

Most of the plays by Shakespeare are historical characters written by Shakespeare which represent real persons. There are many examples such as Henry IV, Henry V, and King Lear, but at the same time, he published romantic comedies such as As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare is famous for tragedies. Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello can be good examples. These works had themes, such as honour, revenge, death, betrayal etc. His comedies are quite different, they are related to romanticism, happiness and love. However, we can say that his comedies as "problem plays" or "dark comedies." 

 

Shakespeare developed a poetic style which was a remarkably fluid, dreamlike sense of plot and a poetic style. Now it is commonly known as "romances." These plays depict interest in moral and emotional life. Thanks to his contributions, English developed noticeably, so his works and endeavours are vital in terms of the history of the English language. He was a master of vocab and he derived many new words. Even today, he has quite an importance and contribution to modern English. 

Shakespeare himself apparently had no interest in preserving for posterity the sum of his writings, let alone in clarifying the chronology of his works or in specifying which plays he wrote alone and which with collaborators. He wrote plays for performance by his company, and his scripts existed in his own handwritten manuscripts or in scribal copies, in playhouse prompt books, and probably in pirated texts based on shorthand reports of performance or on reconstructions from memory by an actor or spectator. None of these manuscript versions has survived. Eighteen of his plays were published during his lifetime in the small-format, inexpensive books called quartos; to these were added eighteen other plays, never before printed, in the large, expensive folio volume of Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, Tragedies (1623) 

  

Sonnets 

In Elizabethan England aristocratic patronage, with the money, protection, and prestige it alone could provide, was probably a professional writer's most important asset. This patronage, or at least Shakespeare's quest for it, is most visible in his dedication in 1593 and 1594 of his narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, to the wealthy young nobleman Henry Wriothesley, earl of Southampton. What return the poet got for his exquisite offerings is unknown. We do know that among wits and gallants the narrative poems won Shakespeare a fine reputation as an immensely stylish and accomplished poet. This reputation was enhanced as well by manuscript circulation of his sonnets, which were mentioned admiringly in print more than ten years before they were published in 1609 (apparently without his personal supervision and perhaps without his consent). 

 

Shakespeare's sonnets are quite unlike the other sonnet sequences of his day, notably in his almost unprecedented choice of a beautiful young man (rather than a lady) as the principal object of praise, love, and idealizing devotion and in his portrait of a dark, sensuous, and sexually promiscuous mistress (rather than the usual chaste and aloof blond beauty). Nor are the moods confined to what the Renaissance thought were those of the despairing Petrarchan lover: they include delight, pride, melancholy, shame, disgust, and fear. Shakespeare's sequence suggests a story, although the details are vague, and there is even doubt whether the sonnets as published are in an order established by the poet himself. Though there are many variations, Shakespeare's most frequent rhyme scheme in the sonnets is abab cdcd efef gg. This so-called Shakespearean pattern often (though not always) calls attention to three distinct quatrains (each of which may develop a separate metaphor), followed by a closing couplet that may either confirm or pull sharply against what has gone before. They are also remarkably dense, written with a daunting energy, concentration, and compression. Often the main idea of the poem may be grasped quickly, but the precise movement of thought and feeling, the links among the shifting images, the syntax, tone, and rhetorical structure prove immensely challenging. These are poems that famously reward rereading.